


This Whole Body Feeling

by glamorous_gryphon



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: BDSM, D/s, Dom/sub, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Sensation Play, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22379899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glamorous_gryphon/pseuds/glamorous_gryphon
Summary: Matt gets his hopes up.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	This Whole Body Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I’m sick, and write while listening to a stream of Hozier songs. Enjoy.

_“Staring through the blackness at some distant star,_

_The thrill of knowing how unknown we are, how alone we are.”_

* * *

Matt Murdock lived a lot of his life through imagination.

What he couldn’t see, he heard, and when his hearing did not suffice, he imagined. Often it coincided that his hearing furnished the images, and complemented what he imagined. More often than not, all his intact senses combined. It almost made for a better experience, this whole-body feeling, his skin reacting and crackling and twitching like a television aerial, his hearing telescoping onto distinct sounds with the accuracy he imagined a zoom lens might have.

This whole-body feeling always made him look forward to Elektra’s visits. 

She came as she always did, like a nighttime phantom. She was good at going undetected, even by him. One time Matt had gotten three steps into his apartment before he felt her, leaning against the railing of the fire escape beyond the open window, coat and what sounded like a scarf flapping around her like bird wings. He’d called her a raven once, and she had responded with wry amusement that she was a cat, and he a little broken bird. 

She had broken into his apartment in the early hours of the morning, before he was back from fighting. Matt had stopped pretending it was anything else, now, that his vigilante crusade was anything but a way of reclaiming the rush of bruised knuckles, bleeding skin, and adrenaline he missed when she was away. Not that she was away much, nowadays. They had reached an agreement on that.

Elektra had broken into his apartment in the early hours of the morning, and had stood still by the oven as he pulled himself through the window and fell onto the couch. Matt heard her approach, felt her nails graze his forehead, felt his pulse quicken in spite of the exhaustion making ragged strips of his vision, and heard her chuckle before he slipped into blackness. Sleep or unconsciousness, he still didn’t know.

When he woke, the sunlight smelt like ammonia, and the crackle of cars on the street outside alerted him to the fact it was late morning. Elektra smelt like orchids and woodsmoke. As she sat down next to him on the couch she let Matt stroke her sleeve, passing his fingertips over the soft chenille as a way of orienting himself. It helped having a grounding sensation to start the day. Especially since he didn’t know what Elektra planned on doing to him yet. 

Brunch, apparently - he’d slept until almost midday. Unusually for Elektra, she chose a regular diner downtown. Matt imagined she would look incongruous, glamorous as she always was, amidst what he judged to be a fairly substandard place based on the clamour around him. He entertained himself for a minute by imagining her leering imperiously at a hapless teenage server, before they were seated and he was subjected to the teeth-numbing coldness of a chocolate milkshake. Breakfast was bracingly greasy, fried, and salty. Perhaps she took pity on him, staying out fighting all night on a stomach devoid of most sustenance except for watery miso. 

As it always did, the thought of Elektra’s pity, the thought of fighting, made his pulse quicken.

Elektra ordered herself black coffee; she always did. She drank deeply from the mug; Matt heard her lips impact the ceramic, the rattle of the coffee sliding past her teeth. Coffee sounded different depending on how much milk was added, and black coffee sounded similar to quarters rattling in a jar. He imagined those lips leaving a dark purple stain on the ceramic - she had kissed him before, earlier, and he had tasted Lisa Eldridge Velvet Midnight. He’d gotten good at identifying lipsticks. Karen was always surprised. 

Matt heard Elektra’s bones straighten as she lifted her head, and had to drum his fingers on the table to pull focus before he went too far and started listening to her heart pumping blood and, if he deigned to concentrate, the sound the _blood_ made as it slid through her arterial walls. His sense of hearing unnerved him sometimes. 

Only sometimes. Other times, like this time, his hearing was a treat. 

“Well.” 

The first real word they’d exchanged all morning hung in the air between them like a stone. It reminded him of a body suspended by rope, and Matt felt his breath quicken before he could stop himself. 

He forced himself to act nonchalant, stretching out his legs (wincing as he stubbed his toe into the opposite chairleg, he was distracted) and folding his arms behind his head. Elektra didn’t like neediness unless it was in… certain circumstances. 

He felt himself smile, the slow curve of his lips he knew Elektra liked. “Well, then.” 

The repetition with an extra word. Testing the limits. 

Matt heard Elektra’s lips draw back over her teeth in a brief grin. She cracked her neck deliberately, knowingly forcing a wince out of him, before she leaned back (the chair creaked) and stretched out _her_ legs, deliberately pressing her soles against his shins. Matt hissed in a breath. It had been fine before, but now the sensation of physical contact was like coming close to a hot pan with unprotected skin, and he did not want the morning to end in a sensory overload. 

“Magenta.” 

Elektra removed her feet. Matt heard her head rise sharply, and he was reminded of a heron spearing a fish, lifting its head from the river with beak dripping. Thinking of dripping things had very unfortunate consequences, as his throat seemed to contract and his oxygen intake shrank to insignificance. 

Elektra caught his predicament (of course she noticed, she always did, it was her role in this relationship). Ceramic scraped on wood as she dragged his plate away, a deeper sound, and Matt focused on the lower pitch to drag himself out of the crackling discomfort that precipitated a sensory overload. Higher sounds always had that effect on him. It was partially why he liked Elektra’s voice so much - smooth and rich, it seemed to elude any of his sensitivities. 

“You’re finished.” 

“Yes, I am.” He agreed automatically, it was what he did. It wouldn’t have mattered if he was or not anyway, but that was how they played. That what was they did.

His eyes were scratchy with tiredness, and his skin ached from the memory of fists and knives, but he wanted. He would take any number of cuts again if it was her knife, any number of bruises if it was her. Some interminable force seemed to have gripped him from the inside, pushing against his muscles, until he wasn’t sure whether or not he could restrain himself from leaping over the table right then and there. 

But he couldn’t. It was against the rules. Informed public consent was ironclad. 

They somehow made it out of the diner and back to his apartment, even though Matthew could only remember part of the way. Just when he thought he had most of New York memorised, Elektra always managed to thwart his efforts by leading him on labyrinthine routes. Matt focused on the press of her boots against the concrete, and the feel of her grip on his arm - firm, firm enough that it seemed to bypass his body’s aversion to physical touch at this point. Her woodsmoke and orchid smell filled his nostrils. Woodsmoke he could attribute to her midnight shenanigans, with the story he heard blaring from a passing taxi radio about a downtown building burnt down overnight a corollary, but the orchids he could not. Did she have the flower tucked in her hair or something? But he couldn’t hear the leaves against any of her hair strands… 

His musings were enlightened once they’d crossed the stoop, Elektra relinquished her grip, and his fingers slid against her wrist as he let go. His fingers came away orchid-scented. _Perfume, then_. 

“I see you’re making an effort.” He knew what he said was against the rules, tipping the power to himself, but he allowed himself a smirk. 

He was rewarded for his efforts with a quick cuff around the back of his head, and he couldn’t restrain a needful whimper. He ignored the exhaustion pressing the back of his skull. 

For some reason, Elektra sighed, and her sigh was tinged with disappointment.

“Are you disappointed in me?” Matt asked as they ascended the stairs. Open communication was a cornerstone. 

“Of course not, Matthew.” Her tone was fondly exasperated now. They were halfway to his apartment now, seventeen steps. “You’re too tired for this.” 

“I thought that’s why you came to visit me.” 

“It was.” Elektra’s voice was quiet, contemplative. They paused the conversation so Elektra could open his door with her key. She carried it on a chain around her neck, a chain identical to the one he hung a padlock off around his neck. 

As they entered, a wave of disappointment overcame him so suddenly that Matt lost his balance and tripped over the doorframe. His breath left his body in a rush as Elektra’s arms were there to catch him. Sudden pain shot through his side, and he hissed in a breath. 

“Do you understand now?” Elektra still sounded amused, but there was a terse undercurrent. “You were bleeding all through breakfast. I’m surprised you didn’t smell it. Or feel it.” 

Matt did smell it, now that she’d mentioned it. He felt it too, a dark stain rapidly gathering and spreading through his shirt. The pain was still a distant sensation - actual physical pain tended to be crowded out by the pain he received from external sensory receptors in these cases. He was surprised nobody at the diner had noticed. “Did you give me the black shirt?”

Playfulness came back to Elektra’s voice suddenly. “You know blood is almost invisible on black clothing, Matthew, we’ve established this.” 

Her tone was so light, he couldn’t restrain a grin. “Bit difficult to get blood out of leather, though.” 

“Good thing I won’t have you in leather today then, isn’t it?” Matt felt Elektra’s fingers pass through his hair, a calming habit. “Sit down on the couch and take off your shirt, I’ll bandage you up.” 

He sat and slid off his shirt, and was safely ensconced in bandages and room-temperature air before the reality of the situation hit him. “So, we’re really not doing this.” He hadn’t intended to sound so sad, but they’d lost thread of the scene ages ago, and the rules were all confused and twisted and upside-down. Matt wasn’t sure what he was allowed to do anymore. Maybe Elektra was right, maybe he was too tired. 

There was no ‘maybes’ about it, he knew that. Elektra was always right. 

Matt shook himself out of his thoughts, and the sounds in the kitchen filtered to the forefront of his consciousness. “What are you doing back there?”

“Making cocoa.” Matt heard her footsteps approach and felt her behind him before the warm mug neared his face. “Careful.” 

Matt accepted the mug, and twisted around to point his face in her direction. Even though he couldn’t see her, Matt would never deprive Elektra his face. “Why are you still here?” She usually left after their sessions. This needless lingering was not altogether unpleasant, just … surprising. 

“Do I need a reason now?” He felt the seat fabric give away beside him and shifted the trajectory of his gaze to the left, feeling foolish. Elektra must have climbed over the back of the sofa. 

Matt lowered his gaze. “No, I suppose not.” He inhaled a slow gulp of cocoa, and smiled at the taste. Elektra always liked adding cinnamon. 

It was at times like this Matt wished he could see her properly. Scent and touch and hearing made for a surprisingly whole impression, but he still wondered. He wondered what her face truly looked like, whether her eyes were shadowed by her soft straight hair, if her eyes were the smoky intense colour of dark sea-glass that he imagined. He knew her lips were midnight-coloured, and tasted exquisite, but he found he couldn’t imagine them as anything other than a deep-set line. Harsh yet soft, he imagined a cast to her face that would shift from playfulness to seriousness, sadism to compassionate with every shift in expression. 

She smelled of orchids. She always did, and he found as he sat there that this, this cataloguing in the dark of everything he could not discern, his way of making up for their lost scene, was almost preferable to their usual pain and bloodshed. 

Cautiously, unsure if Elektra would allow it, Matt reached for her sleeve. She let him run his fingers over the fabric again, and even returned the gesture with a brief, soft scratch of his head. 

“Matthew.” After a pause, her fingers cupped the side of his face. 

He pressed his face into her palm, thrilling in the warm thrum of her body nearby. “Hmm?”

“I love you. Don’t forget that.” 

He pulled away and settled back against the couch. “I won’t.” Knowing now that whatever scene Elektra had been looking to establish was well and truly over, Matt allowed himself a full, impish smile. “You’re not nearly as scary a domme as you’d like to believe.” 

That remark earned him two cuffs over the head this time, but they were light, _he_ was light, Elektra was light, and as they sat in the light together, drinking cocoa, Elektra even laughed.

* * *

_“Honey, when you kill the lights and kiss my eyes,_

_I feel like a person for a moment of my life.”_


End file.
